


Black, Seeping Darkness

by skylinehorizon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied Castiel/Dean Winchester, Post-Hell Sam, Season/Series 07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 18:53:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1789549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skylinehorizon/pseuds/skylinehorizon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean keeps getting nightmares full of darkness and water and black goo, and him, with his arms stretched high, and his coat covered in blood. Sam is just trying to keep himself together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black, Seeping Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ in August 2012. 
> 
> Enjoy!

He’s in a whirlpool of black goo, and he’s drowning, and he can’t reach him, he can’t pull him out of the water and save him. He looks up at him from the darkness, reaches his arm out and he tries so hard to save him. Instead he feels himself teetering on the ledge, like a knife’s edge, and he’s being pulled in, they’re clawing at him and pulling at his flesh, and he gets sucked under just late enough to see blue eyes get sucked into the depths.    
  
He jumps with a start and pushes back against the headrest, and then he’s there, someone’s there, but it’s Sam, it’s only Sam, and Dean runs a hand over his face and can already feel the hot tears at his eyes.   
  
“It’s okay,” Sam says quietly, gingerly sitting on the edge of his mattress. Dean shakes his head. It’s not. It’s not okay.   
  
Sam shuffles forward and stares down at him, but Dean can’t meet his gaze, can’t shake out the image of his arms raised above his head, as if he were surrendering to the water, black goo seeping from his eyes and mouth and ears.   
  
He shakes his head but the memories just won’t shift and Sam is watching him like he’s a wounded animal, and Dean feels guilty making Sam sit through this, when Sam is dealing with his own memories that are even more savage and tear at him in the light as well as the dark.   
  
He reaches his hand beneath his pillow and fingers at the rough material, coated with blood and dirt, goo and river water. He swallows hard and squeezes his eyes shut, tries to stop the hot flood of tears but he can still taste them, salty and bitter in his mouth.   
  
Sam tentatively wraps his arms around him, and Dean leans against him, allowing the sobs to wrack through him. “It’s okay, Dean,” he says, quietly. “I miss Cas, too.”   
  
Dean feels like he’s splintering, clutching at Sam’s arms and burying his face in Sam’s chest. Sam lets him, tells him again and again that everything is going to be fine, that he’ll get past this and it was just a dream, only a dream.   
  
The memories might fade but the nightmares come again and again, and each night it’s like pouring salt in an infected wound. Sam continues to hold him, and Dean clutches a little harder, and he tries not to think of the friend who betrayed him, who he loved and lost.   
  


***

  
In the morning the darkness in Dean’s mind seeps away, recedes back like the shore, and he spends all his energy focusing on Sam. He’s not the only one slipping down the single thread that’s keeping him sane. Sam’s is stretched too tense, and it’s only a matter of time before it snaps. He knows it is.  
  
Sam clutches at his hand, presses down on that scar and Dean watches him carefully. Sam doesn’t say anything, he never does, and Dean puts his baby in reverse and pulls out of the car park and onto the road.   
  
They don’t have anywhere to go today, not really. They drive around aimlessly, trying to keep busy, scouring the newspapers and looking online whenever they can stop for a bite and get wifi. Whenever he gets a moment to pause and think the darkness tries to edge its way in again, but Dean just turns up the radio, presses hard on the gas, and locks it away.   
  
It’s only when his guard is down in the middle of night where he comes back again, eyes bright and blue and that wicked smile, teeth bright with blood, skin peeling red, that he grabs at him and claws at him. It’s worse, somehow, that the person in his nightmares that’s taken over from Alistair is the angel who saved him from Hell.   
  


***

  
“We’ll get away,” Sam says, sipping through a straw, fries balancing on his knee. They’re sat on the bonnet of the Impala, looking up at the stars. “Somewhere hot and dusty.”  
  
Somewhere without water. Dean is grateful at what Sam is suggesting without actually saying it.   
  
“We can’t,” Dean says. Sam doesn’t agree or disagree with him, just picks up his box of fries and puts them on Dean’s knee. His appetite hasn’t come back yet, and Dean doesn’t comment on it. Dean looks down at his own meal, sans meat, because if there’s one thing he can do to help Sam, it’s keep away from anything that resembles flesh for a while. He can go a few weeks without burgers or bacon.   
  
“Thanks, Sammy,” Dean says, pouring Sam’s fries into his own pile. Sam looks up at the stars and lets out a breath, a small cloud seeping through his parted lips.   
  
“It’ll get easier. I promise,” Sam says gently. Dean suddenly loses his appetite.   
  
Dean clears his throat, feels the familiar darkness inching its way in, and says, “How’s - you know--”  
  
“Satan riding shotgun?” Sam smiles humourlessly and shrugs. “It’s okay. I’m getting better at telling.”  
  
“That’s good,” Dean says sincerely, and a lot relieved, even if he doesn’t quite believe him. He puts the food down and follows Sam’s gaze, looking up at the sky. Sam used to be obsessed with stars and constellations when he was younger, and there was a time when he would beg Dean to let him go out in the middle of the night to go stargazing.   
  
They’d walk to the nearest woods or field where the sky is clean and bright, and sit down and arch their necks back to look at them. They’d sit still for hours, and sometimes they’d talk, if only to point out a constellation or particular star. It’s a comfort that after all they’ve been through they can still, always, come back to this.


End file.
